Werry House had been built at the time of Edward IV, when all the Bodrugan interests were at their peak. Later, when Richard’s lust for power had ruined the Yorkist cause, the main Gorran Bodrugans had come crashing down; but the Werry Bodrugans had managed to find some favour at Henry’s court and had preserved their inheritance. Now the stock was petering out of its own accord. Neither Sir Hugh nor his stepmother cared anything for appearances. They kept servants to wait on their needs but preferred to live in disorder. They liked to slop about the house in muddy boots and throw them anywhere when discarded, and Sir Hugh had been known to say that the sight of a tidy room or a polished floor put him in mind of his old grandfather, whom he was trying to forget.
But there had been some effort to better the place for the time of the party. The lawns were cut, some of the walls and ceilings brushed, and most of the menagerie of strange animals had been cleared out and herded into two rooms. If one were not too particular or took more notice of the company than of the chair one sat in, the whole thing passed muster pretty well.
Much the biggest room in the house was the hall, and this had a stone-flagged floor, a great fireplace, a raised dais at one end, and a high hammer-beam roof. The lower half of the walls, below the windows, was covered with moth-eaten tapestry, and above were numerous candelabra usually not lighted. It was in this room that the ball was to take place.
It was fortunate for Demelza that her decision to go, and to go in such a mood, was taken with so little time to prepare, otherwise she might have wondered a good deal what to wear. Problems of transport she had been quick-witted enough to solve before she dismissed the footman yesterday. Knowing that Ross would take Darkie, she had sent a message to Sir Hugh asking him to send over a groom and a horse; and this he did about five. So she arrived at Werry House in stylish manner, followed by a liveried man on another horse carrying her bag.
The drive of Werry House led out upon a coaching road, so most of the guests who came from central and southern parts of the county had arrived in their carriages. Six was evidently the fashionable time, for Demelza had to wait her turn before she could ride up to the front door, and she was the object of numerous raised quizzing glasses. She bore the scrutiny coldly, sitting straight-backed in her dark riding habit and tricorn hat.
Hugh and his stepmother were just inside the door, having been lured into the hall from an interesting discussion with John Treneglos on farcy in horses. Demelza came just on the heels of Mr and Mrs Nicholas Warleggan and heard Mr Warleggan’s apology. George had very urgent business and presented his compliments and regrets. Following her were a couple whom she vaguely recognized as Lord and Lady Devoran. Lord Devoran was a friend of Ross’s.
Sir Hugh came up to her and said: ‘Ha! ma’am, so you’ve ventured to trust yourself to me care and left your husband by the fireside. Good. Good.’
‘Yes, Sir Hugh. I thought ’twas not the weather for firesides.’
‘Nor is it, m’dear. I’m with you there. But it is a very respectable gathering this week-end, damme. Or most of it gives that impression at a distance. You’ll be quite safe with us, ma’am, I assure you.’
‘That’s what I was afeared of,’ said Demelza.
He chuckled dryly and looked at her with his beady black eyes. ‘’Tis comforting to hear you talk so even if you don’t mean it. Respectability bores me to madness, and I fancy there’ll be moments this week-end when I shall be glad to slip away. Did I not promise you bawdy talk? Yes, I did, and you shall have it. We’ll nip into a corner somewhere and—’
‘Hughie!’ called his stepmother. ‘Miss Robartes is here with Dr Halse. Go and see ‘em down! God damn it, I can’t be everywhere!’
As Demelza was shown to her room along the floor-creaking corridor upstairs, she reflected that she would have to be very far gone in drink before she could throw herself at Hugh Bodrugan’s head. He had tried to make love to her in Bodmin, and even now her flesh crept at the thought.
That no doubt was always the trouble with wronged wives. The will to retaliate was there but not the object to make it possible.
The bedroom she had been shown into was big and low with heavy beams and panelled walls. When she was alone she at once went to the window and threw it open before beginning to unpack her dress. The window looked out on the side of the house, across two sloping lawns towards a belt of beech trees. The trees were just in their first entrancing green, dappling in the sunlight like watered silk. Bisecting the lawns was a broad low-walled path sentinelled with statuary, much of it now showing the effects of wind and weather.
Coming along the path towards the house was Malcolm McNeil of the Scots Greys.
Sir Hugh’s preferences seldom leaned towards the conventional; and since this was to be a dance, his view was that the thing should be got under way as soon as possible and kept up as long as possible so that no one should complain they hadn’t had their money’s worth. Also he wanted his money’s worth out of the orchestra. Still further, he was no great hand himself at these stately minuets and gavottes, so that if he could get them disposed of before supper they could concentrate on the country dances after and everyone could get hot and sweaty and enjoy themselves.
She deliberately kept her room for a time. A maid brought chocolate up for her and she sat in her lawn morning-gown sipping quietly and enjoying the view. She had no plans and no thoughts. Her mind did not go to Ross and Elizabeth, nor did it to Sir Hugh or Captain McNeil. She was like the captain of a ship just before an action, drained of emotion and free from apprehensiveness, detached from what had gone and what might come.
About seven she began to dress, sponging her body and putting on clean and flimsier underclothes. There was very little one could wear under this dress which Ross had bought her for the Celebration Ball of ’89 and which she had not worn since. She had changed very little in figure since then, but found it a little tighter in the bodice and a little less tight in the waist. She put on her only pair of silk stockings – a present from Verity the Christmas of ’91 – liking the feel of the silk against her skin.
She decided to do her hair, or try to do it, the way the Warleggans’ maid had dressed it four years ago, piling it up and up, only allowing wisps to fall in front of her ears and that bit of a fringe to curl on its own. No maid had come to help, and she was grateful. Nor any patches on this dressing table, but she had brought her own powder and rouge – present from Verity the Christmas of ’92 – and she used these very sparingly, and lengthened her eyebrows about an inch each.
All that done, she at last began to struggle into her frock. It was curious the warmth there was in fine silver brocade. Unimaginable contortions were needed to fasten it, but at last it was done. She stared at herself in the mirror and considered that she might have passed herself in the street without recognition. But not without a second glance. Did not this appearance proclaim her pretensions far too obviously? Did decent women look like this? She decided after sober consideration that they did.
Out in the dusty, shadowy corridor the first strains of music came to her ears. So she was not too early. The thing had begun. Dancing – or at least music – before eight o’clock with the sun still in the sky and the birds twittering. More suitable in high May to have dancing on the lawns. She bitterly regretted not having included a bottle of port in her luggage. Facing the company in cold blood.
In this house the stairs did not come down directly into the big hall but into a smaller hall at the rear of the house, so she was saved the ordeal of descending in full view. As she came down, John Treneglos was at the foot of the stairs and immediately caught sight of her. Neighbour Treneglos, eldest son of the master of Mingoose House and himself already almost master of it; a clumsily built, sandy-haired, freckled man of thirty-five or -six.
‘Why, there, if it isn’t Mistress Demelza! Tally ho! Where’ve you been hiding yourself, eh?’
His trumpeting tones drew everyone’s attention, and Demelza thought, I must be careful. She had no particular affection for John Treneglos and less still for Ruth, his wife, who always tried to take her down a peg; but she well knew John’s feelings for her. It would not do to repeat the performance of four years ago at the Assembly Rooms when, in this very frock and hair style, she had had four or five men nearly fighting for her – and herself meaning then no more than to be polite and accommodating.
He came up a few steps and held out his arms. ‘You’ll allow me to escort you into the ballroom, eh? And the first dance, eh? Same as once before! History repeats itself. ‘Twould give me pleasure to spike your husband’s guns for once. Where is he?’
She gave him her hand. ‘He was called away. Where is your wife?’
‘In pup as usual. And ’tis near her time or she would have come whether or no, you know her. This is all very well met. Damn it, I believe it was arranged by Providence!’
‘Damn it, I believe it was not,’ said Demelza.
He laughed heartily, and they went into the ballroom.
Her impression of the first hours of the dance was hazy and confused. Above all at the first she needed a stimulant to give her poise and possession and to steady her nerves, but it seemed hours before anyone offered her one. Then it was some dry-tasting wine and not enjoyable to drink. But in the end it had the right effect.
Six in the orchestra, three violins, a tabor, a pipe, and a French horn. The conductor, who was also one of the violinists, was the roundest man she had ever seen, everything about him rotund, from his gold-rimmed spectacles to his gold-fobbed belly. His coattails were never still; they beat time metronome-fashion and were only subdued when he sat on them during the negligible intervals.
All of fifty people in the room, which had been decorated with lilac and daffodils. Sir John Trevaunance had come but not Unwin. Mr Ray Penvenen was there, although he did not dance and looked very pale and austere among it all. Robert Bodrugan, Sir Hugh’s only nephew and heir presumptive, had come, and she had two dances with him during the early part of the evening. All the Teague family, and three of the Boscoignes, and Richard Treneglos, John’s second brother, and Joan Pascoe, the banker’s daughter – but not Dwight Enys; and William Hick, and Mrs and Mrs Barbary, and Peter St Aubyn Tresize, and the Hon. Mrs Maria Agar, and Lady Whitworth and her son, who was now a parson, and Lieutenant and Mrs Carruthers, and dozens more.
One person very noticeable in the company was a tall handsome woman in black, with so many bangles and trinkets that she clinked every time she moved, and it wasn’t until she was to be seen hanging on Sir Hugh Bodrugan’s arm that Demelza placed her as the notorious Margaret Vosper with whom Sir Hugh had been consorting for twelve months. During the evening they came towards her and Sir Hugh said:
‘D’you know my friend Mrs Vosper, ma’am? Mrs Ross Poldark. You two should have something in common; both pretty women and only need to crook a finger at a man, eh? Or have you already an acquaintance?’
Margaret laughed in a loud husky contralto: ‘I don’t know this one well, but I’ve had dealings one way or another with all the male Poldarks. Maybe we’ve more in common than you think, Hughie.’
Sir Hugh cackled and Demelza’s soul went black within her. She didn’t doubt the woman’s insinuations; it all fitted in with Ross’s perfidy.
‘You have the advantage of me, ma’am,’ she said, ‘but I expect that would be before I was born.’
Sir Hugh’s laughter became louder. ‘I hope you’re enjoying the dance, mistress. I confess I’ve not seen you sitting out much.’
‘’Tis a very beautiful dance, Sir Hugh, and I’d no idea there was so many handsome men in all Cornwall. ’Tis fortunate that you need not fear the competition.’
Sir Hugh took out his snuffbox and tapped it, hiding his expression from Margaret.
‘This fancy talk’s giving me the vapours,’ Margaret said yawning. ‘I’ve buried two husbands and been straw widow to a number of others – naming no names – and I never see the point of beating about the bush. If you feel a taking for someone, go up and ask ‘em yes or no and have done with it.’
‘’Twould be very businesslike,’ Demelza said.
‘Businesslike and honest,’ said Margaret. ‘A man knows where he is and so does a woman—’
‘She knows where she’s likely to be,’ put in Sir Hugh with a rumble.
‘Do you not think,’ said Demelza recklessly, ‘that there is a case to be made out for a thought more daintiness in love? I should better prefer to take my time in making up my mind. Even if it seem like beating about the bush to you, I should rather do that than get scratched and worn on every bush I see.’
Fortunately, John Treneglos came up just then and claimed Demelza, and Margaret drew Sir Hugh away and soon gained his attention again.
But it was Demelza whom Sir Hugh led in to supper.
She had not seen anything of Malcolm McNeil in the early part of the evening. He had not been in the room at all to begin; but when he caught sight of her, he at once hurried across, pushing his way between Peter Tresize and Lieutenant Carruthers, who were talking to her.
‘Why, Mrs Poldark, I’d no idea! A glorious surprise on a man’s last night! When may I have the favour of a dance? Are you engaged for supper?’
‘Yes, I’m that sorry.’
‘And the dances before?’
‘I’m five deep already.’
‘Then after supper? The first?’
‘Very well. The first.’
‘Why,’ said Tresize, ‘that’s unfair, ma’am! It was the one I’d just asked you for.’
‘I’d been saving it for Captain McNeil. I’m that sorry, Mr Tresize. Perhaps the second?’
‘The second then.’
‘I want the third,’ said Lieutenant Carruthers. ‘I’ve heard the third is to be an écossaise. They are rare good sport and—’
‘I think if ’tis that dance, I should dance it with a Scotsman. That is, if he would condescend to ask me.’
‘Great plaisure, ma’am,’ said McNeil, pulling at his moustache in agitation. ‘And many more if I may have ’em.’
Demelza thought of Margaret’s philosophy. ‘What you care to ask for, sir, so long as you ask now.’
‘The first, the third, the fifth, the seventh, and all thereafter, if there be an after.’
‘I believe strongly in a thereafter,’ Demelza said.
‘I see it as naught but gluttony,’ said Tresize. ‘And you should not encourage gluttony, ma’am; it gives rise to other appetites.’
‘Captain McNeil tells me he is leaving on the morrow. Or so I b’lieve. Perhaps he may be permitted special indulgences on that score.’
‘You’re immensely kind, Mrs Poldark!’
Later, when Sir Hugh took her in to supper, she was aware that all the events of four years ago were being repeated, except that she was keeping a better control on them. The knowledge was headier than the thin French wine.
But to go on drinking in careful moderation, not enough to get drunk but enough to maintain her present condition, was vitally necessary not only for reasons of poise and confidence. In her spirit, in the very deep parts of her spirit, the desolation which had been there nearly a week was no different at all. Nothing she could do tonight could change it. Margaret could rub it freshly raw, but even that didn’t vitally matter. She had already lost all there was to lose. To use her own simile, she was like a Christian who had lost God, a believer turned atheist, knowing relief and unexampled liberty, trying to rejoice over the outworn beliefs she had thrown away, conscious of the immense winds of freedom and utterly determined to make the most of them; but at heart lost, irretrievably lost.